March 2018 Wrap-Up

 

In February, i was determined to have a good reading month in March. It’s been a long time since i’ve been fully content with what i’ve read in a month, and have felt happy with the amount i’ve been reading. I think in March i’ve finally done it, i’m happy with what i read!

I’ve been struggling a lot this year (so far) keeping up with everything i need to. Either blog posts suffer or my reading suffers, and most of the time it’s been my reading. I’ve slacked a lot on books that  i definitely should have read by now, and i only know i should have done because i’m now seeing them released in shops and thinking “Damn, i got that ARC 6 months ago.”

I’ve had a little bit of a catch up month, which has felt great and i’ve gotten so much read. Here is everything that i read in March.

Perfect by Cecelia Ahern
I really enjoyed Flawed when i read it years ago. It was one of the first dystopian novels i truly liked, and i couldn’t wait to get my hands on Perfect pretty soon after that. Obviously, that didn’t happen. One of my challenges for this year was to read a sequel, and in trying to do that, i finally picked up Perfect. Without a doubt i didn’t enjoy this as much as i thought i would do, but i found it okay. I still love the world building in this duology and it’s one of the only things i’ve enjoyed from Cecelia Ahern admittedly. I wouldn’t rate this as highly as Flawed because i found it a little problematic, but overall it was good.

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt
At YALC last year i finally picked up my copy of this book and i knew i wanted to read it soon. Again, it’s been just short of a year since YALC and i only just got around to reading it. I’d heard nothing about this novel except it was a little strange and it was pretty powerfully written and emotive. I probably agree with all of these things. It was a much faster read than i anticipated but i really enjoyed the story of it and it showed a lot of emotional writing from the author that i thought was pretty skilled.

Clean by Juno Dawson
Who hasn’t been anticipating this book for a long time? I practically screamed when i managed to get my hands on an early copy of this beauty (literally, the cover is beautiful). Lexi has been on my radar for a long time now, and i’ve hardly been able to wait to learn her story. This book follows teenage sociolite Lexi as she joins rehab and returns to the real world. I don’t have enough praise for this book. I adored it. The characters were wonderfully diverse and the writing was incredible. It’s one of my new favourite books.

Everyday by David Levithan
Everyday is the first book to be read in our LGBTQ+ Book Club. We announced this at the beginning of the month but there is still time to get this read and attend our reading group on the 4th of April. HERE are the details in case you missed it. This was a re-read for me. I first picked up Everyday a few years ago now, and absolutely adored the story of A and the different writing style. We wanted to focus more on the sexuality and gender side to the book this time. I found that there was potentionally a lot less than i thought, and i wasn’t overly impressed with it the second time around. I’ll have a whole post about this up after book club.

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle
I bought A Wrinkle In Time to be prepared for the movie release in March (nope, i’ve still not seen the movie!). It’s a middle-grade sci-fi novel, both things i’m not usually too fond of. I ended up reading this over about a week because i found it a little confusing. The characters were not overly well explained and i struggled to imagine a lot of the things happening in the book. However, i did enjoy the story in the end. I really want to see the movie still to see how it compares to the book, but i’m in no rush now i didn’t absolutely adore the book. Let me know if you’ve read this!

I also started Sam and Ilsa’s Last Hurrah by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn in March. I was hoping to finish this in March but that has not happened. It will definitely be the first book that i finish in April and i’m hoping that i can read just as much in April as i did in March. I’m really pleased with the amount i actually got read. Five and a half books in a month for me is a lot.

Books read: 5

Books read this year: 13

Pages read: 1,699

Pages Per Day: 54

Average Rating: 3.7

Male/Female Authors: Two male, Three female

Years of Release: 1962, 2013, 2017, 2018

Genres: Middle-, YA, Contemporary, Dystopian